Two Gay Guys Walk Into a Car Dealership

My best friend Colin needs a new car. His current ride, a 1999 VW Passat Wagon, isn’t dead. In fact it’s still running strong, and it’s the right size for transporting him and his boyfriend and all their crap—as well as his adorable pit bull/boxer mix, Wally—back and forth between the city and his house upstate nearly every weekend of the year. But Colin has been getting increasingly sick of the car for the past five years as little, but annoying, stuff on it has started to fail. And every so often, a gentleman needs a change, if just to feel alive. The problem is, Colin has champagne tastes. Actually, that’s not the problem. The problem is that he has champagne tastes, but works in the publishing industry which, as you may have heard, is rumored to go the way of the haberdashery industry at any moment, so it’s not the best time to blow his wad on a fancy vehicle. Having seen some of the desperate, Carmageddon-inspired auto manufacturer promotions that are currently littering the airwaves, and following my recession-friendly idiom, Downsizing is the New Upscale, he decided it would be best to lease an inexpensive vehicle for the next few years while saving up for what he calls his “Goal Wagon”—an Audi, Mercedes, or Volvo—when/if the economy improves and his job/life feels more secure. Take a flailing stab at guessing which automotive journalist was tagged to help Mr. Fancypants in his unattainable quest for a completely satisfying, sub-standard vehicle? Like millions of other Americans—as well as some “wilding” teens—we began our search at the New York Auto Show. Here, I took Colin and his BF on a tour of about a dozen vehicles that could potentially meet his needs, cars that were inexpensive, acceptably stylish (or at least “stylish”), economical, big enough for Wally to stand up in the cargo hold, and not from a brand Colin found “tacky, depressing, or embarrassing.” I was also pulled toward the exhibits from some of the masspirational European brands mentioned above, so my friend could leer at and run his hands over the seductive flanks of his potential future sleds. Realtors often use the trick of showing you a dumpy place within your price range as a way of encouraging you to make the jump up to a higher and more satisfying level. The reverse does not work in car shopping. After every Ford or Mazda I pointed out, Colin would groan and say things like, “I just hate to pay for something that won’t satisfy me. It’s like buying cheap clothing.” He also did a lot of putting his hands on his hips and sneering.

We ultimately ended up narrowing our list to about five vehicles, a mix of wagons, hatchbacks, and small S.U.V.-like “crossovers”—car-based, tall wagons designed to sate American’s desire for versatility, cargo room, and decent gas mileage, while glossing over their endemic aversion to anything that smacks of their wagon-y childhoods. Then we made appointments at some mid-market dealers. Added to the agenda at the last minute by my B.F.F. was a trip to the Volvo store in Manhattan for a test drive of their adorable V50 wagon. Not only was this the first stop of the day, thus guaranteeing that every vehicle we drove after would be compared to it (negatively), but it turned out that the silver model we tested was one of the last ones in the entire Northeast, not good for a consumer with a decided competitive streak. Even worse, when we returned from a quick loop around the West Side, there was another pair of queens waiting to take the little Swede for a spin. “We’re buying it!” Colin shouted over his shoulder at the other couple. Fortunately, I talked him out of this, (as did the lease price, which was about twice his budget.)

Next stop was the Honda dealer, where we checked out a new piano-black Accord Crosstour—essentially a big-assed, jacked-up, five-door version of their eternally popular sedan—and a dark blue CR-V—the most popular small S.U.V. in America. The Crosstour was immediately ruled out as too rich, as it was not included under the umbrella of Honda’s $0/$0/$0/$0 lease promotion, which allegedly allows you to leave the dealership in a new car without putting any money down—hence all those zeroes. The CR-V, on the other hand, was deemed acceptable and roomy, but seemed like too much car for a guy without any Costco trips to make or kids to shuffle off to qigong practice. Also, its popularity worked against it. “Why would I want the same car everyone else has?” my friend asked. (Because it’s a highly rated, satisfying, roomy, affordable vehicle, did not really rate as an acceptable answer.) This was probably not the right time to try and convince him of the merits of testing a plebeian-seeming Chevrolet Equinox, one of the CR-V’s excellent domestic competitors, but I made a case. Unfortunately, the Equinox is so well regarded—Chevrolet is selling every single one they build—that there are no promotions available on it, rendering it lease-unfriendly, in the parlance. “I can't believe I can't even afford my stupid crappy fall-back car!” Colin shouted.

We headed out to our final stop, a VW dealer in central Jersey, feeling a bit defeated. Not helping matters much, I realized a bit late, was the fact that we were conducting this entire tour in a $70,000 Jaguar XF SC, the leather-lined, aluminum-trimmed, high-output, boomingly-stereoed, lube-slick version of one of my Top 5 cars from 2009. As we drove through suburban hell, Colin ran his hand longingly over the Jag’s exquisite, French-stitched, cow-hide dash. “I should have gotten a Kia minivan or something for this trip,” I offered. He simply sighed.

Fortunately, the VW dealer did not disappoint. He found us a Jetta SportWagon in a lovely shade of metallic night-sky blue with all the options that Colin could realistically afford—Bluetooth connectivity for his cell phone, a sunroof, a decent stereo—for $0 down (save tax and fees), and a realistic monthly price. He even offered a decent amount of cash for trade on the old Passat, likely the result of some brand-loyalty program. Will Colin be happy? Before signing papers he had me scour the Internet for examples of clean, low-mileage, two year-old Audi, Mercedes, and Volvo wagons, so my guess is, probably not. But I’m willing to bet that he’ll be satisfied. And the lease he’s signing has a set terminus, allowing a clear end-date for pining for his Goal Wagon.